Read Online The Girl on the Via Flaminia by Hayes Alfred - Free Book Online Page A

said.
    â€œSoup?” The astonishment was, perhaps, similar to her own. “But how? In a package?”
    â€œIt is dried soup.”
    â€œUn altro miracolo,” Adele said. “They put everything in packages.” She shook the tinfoil. “Well, one can’t die from it.” She looked at the girl. “Sit down, signora. Have some coffee.”
    â€œNo, grazie.”
    â€œThe coffee’s ready.” Reluctantly, Lisa sat down.
    â€œDid you sleep well? Did the room please your husband?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIn the old days, I wouldn’t have thought of renting a room. But now . . .” She poured the coffee. “This is the last of Nina’s captain.”
    â€œGood,” Antonio said.
    â€œWhy? Good we had the coffee. You drink it.”
    â€œReluctantly,” Antonio said.
    â€œNevertheless, you drink it,” Adele said.
    Antonio smiled across the table at her. “Do you know Leopardi, signora?”
    â€œLeopardi?” Lisa said. “The poems?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNo. I know very little poetry.”
    â€œâ€˜O patria mia,’” Antonio quoted, “‘I see the walls and the arches and the columns and the images and the heraldic shields of our ancestors, but the glory I do not see.’”
    His smile made her uncomfortable. “‘But the glory I don’t see,’” Antonio said, repeating his Leopardi. “Their coffee I see.” He stirred his cup. “Signor Roberto is a private, isn’t he?”
    â€œYes,” the girl said.
    â€œAntonio means,” Adele said, “that in our army he was an officer. That is something to boast about.”
    â€œI am not boasting,” Antonio said. “It doesn’t matter what I was. What I was exists only in the Libyan desert. I only meant a girl like you, signora, might have married one of their officers.”
    She flushed.
    â€œWas I unfortunate?”
    â€œNo,” Antonio said. “I suppose their privates are richer than our colonels. What does your husband do, signora—in America?”
    â€œIn America?” she said.
    â€œYes. When he is a civilian. Where the war is over.”
    â€œHe is studying to be a lawyer,” Lisa said.
    â€œAn avvocato? Very good,” Adele said.
    I am lying, Lisa thought; why should I be? Why do I try to make him somebody or something important? Perhaps he works in a garage. Perhaps he is nothing.
    â€œA lawyer?” Antonio said, politely. “He does not look like a lawyer. But then, even their priests—have you seen their priests?—they don’t look like priests either. Their priests look like soccer players.”
    â€œThe military ones,” Adele said.
    â€œDo we ever see anything but their military ones?” Antonio said. He stood up. “‘Ma la gloria non vedo,’” he said, again quoting Leopardi. “Do you know, signora, when I left in my transport from Augusta to sail for Africa there was a time when I thought I would enjoy the war? I thought it would force me into a heroism, and to be a hero, even a reluctant one, is an attractive idea. I thought war was something like firefighting: a great blaze, and then men, all together, working to put it out.” He grinned, savagely, and she realized that the mockery was not directed at her, but at himself, at that poor illusioned Antonio who had gone into the transport at Augusta. “But how wrong I was; war is the opposite of men working together. It is more than ever only men trying to save themselves separately. At Bardia I was cured of being a fool about war forever.”
    â€œAnd now?” Lisa said.
    â€œNow?” He looked intently at her. He hesitated. “Excuse me, signora—but your husband, have you found it possible to be happy with a,” and there was again that slight pause as he chose the word, “stranger?”
    â€œA stranger?” Lisa said. “But